Setting Up Email Accounts In Thunderbird 3
Mozilla Thunderbird 3 is currently available as a release candidate. This suggests that the final version of the desktop email client will be released rather sooner than later. One of the biggest changes between Thunderbird 2 and Thunderbird 3 is the way new email accounts are created. Email users needed to setup the email account manually in Thunderbird 2 which has changed to a semi-automated process in Thunderbird 3.
The best case for setting up an email account in Thunderbird 3 is that the user only needs to fill out three different parameters of which none are related to mail server host names or ports.
As you can see it is only necessary to fill out a name, email address and password in the beginning.
Thunderbird will not automatically try and discover the incoming and outgoing mail server including ports and security settings. These information are displayed on the same screen and a green light indicates that the discovery was successful.
It is now up to the user to either accept the discovered settings, edit them right away or opt for a manual setup which will lead to the same email setup options that Thunderbird 2 offered its users.
Edit makes it possible to edit parameters like the username, incoming server, incoming mail protocol, port and security settings on the same screen. These can be directly verified by Mozilla Thunderbird 3.
The mail server discovery works very well for popular email providers such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. It can happen that Thunderbird is not able to discover those settings which often happens if the user hosts mail accounts by lesser known providers or on a virtual or dedicated server.
The only option that is then available is to opt for the manual setup to configure the email account so that it can be used in the email client.
Thunderbird 3 makes it very easy to setup email accounts especially if they are hosted by a popular email provider. These email users do not have to hunt down the mail server settings on the email providers website anymore since they are automatically discovered by Thunderbird.
Tags: Email, email client, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird 3